Sweet Potato Cacio e Pepe

After a busy day at the office and a 60-minute sweat session at the gym, it’s difficult to muster the energy to cook dinner (might I add that this was not an issue until I moved to NYC and getting from place to place became its own marathon). If I’m being honest, I’d much rather munch on a few snacks than sit down to a full meal at 8:30 PM on a weeknight. These somewhat rushed evenings make my weekend dinners, often pricey and indulgent, that much sweeter. But my body tells me when I’m not being healthy; my energy dips and my digestive system…how shall I say this…stops functioning.

So even when reaching for a handful of this and that seems much easier than cooking a dinner, it’s important to have a few simple recipes to keep my body on track. Having previously believed my vegetti would only spiralize a zucchini, I was thrilled to learn that I could also make sweet potato noodles (the key is finding very narrow and long potatoes).

With my parents on vacation in Italy at the moment, I felt inspired by the minimalism of Italian staples, specifically cacio e pepe – cheese and pepper. A bit of butter, some fresh Parmesan, and a whole lot of cracked black pepper…you just can’t go wrong.

Ingredients (1 serving):

1 medium sweet potato (long and narrow)

1/2 tbsp of unsalted butter

Sea salt and cracked pepper

2 tbsp of shaved Parmesan or Pecorino Romano

Directions:

Use a vegetable peeler to skin the bottom half of your sweet potato and remove the ends. Using a spiralizer or vegetti, make the potato into noodles. I found that I would need to chop off the tip of the cone every once in a while in order to keep spinning the potato. Keep going until you’ve spiralized as much of the sweet potato as possible.

Bring a pot of water to boil and dump in the noodles, stirring and then cooking for a total of 3-5 minutes, then draining in a colander and shocking with cold water to stop the noodles from cooking further.

In a large saute pan over medium heat, add the 1/2 tbsp of unsalted butter. Let the butter melt and bubble for about 30 seconds before adding in a few grinds of black pepper. Dump in the sweet potato noodles and saute everything together for a couple of minutes, then add a grind of sea salt pour on the cheese and continue mixing thoroughly over heat for about 30 seconds.

Serve right from the pan onto a fresh plate and add additional cheese as desired.